[25] The bulk of FdI's membership (including Meloni, who has led the party since 2014), and its symbol, the tricolour flame,[26] hail from the post-fascist National Alliance (AN), which was established in 1995 and merged into PdL in 2009.

[37][38] Academics and observers have variously described it as conservative,[39][40] national-conservative, right-wing populist, social-conservative,[41] nationalist,[42][43] neo-fascist,[44][40] post-fascist,[45][46] nativist[47][48] and anti-immigrant.

[53][54][55] In November 2012, Ignazio La Russa and Maurizio Gasparri, leaders of the Protagonist Right, a faction within The People of Freedom (PdL), announced their support for Angelino Alfano in the party primary scheduled for December.

On 16 December 2012, Giorgia Meloni, Fabio Rampelli, Guido Crosetto, and Giuseppe Cossiga organised in Rome the Primaries of Ideas,[57] in which they openly criticised Silvio Berlusconi's leadership and any possible prospect of an electoral alliance with Prime Minister Mario Monti, proposed by some leading factions of the party, among them Liberamente, Network Italy, Reformism and Freedom, Liberal Populars, New Italy, and FareItalia.

[66] On 5 March 2013, the party's executive board appointed La Russa president, Crosetto coordinator, and Meloni leader in the Chamber of Deputies.

[67] On 29 April, Meloni announced in the Chamber of Deputies the party's vote of no confidence for Enrico Letta's government, supported by PD, PdL, and Civic Choice.

[80][81] In November 2015, it was announced that the party would undergo a new process of enlargement and that a new political committee, named Our Land (TN), would be launched by January 2016.

[82][83][84] In March 2016, Rizzetto officially joined FdI and it was announced that the party's group in the Chamber would be renamed Brothers of Italy–Our Land.

In the event, FdI welcomed several newcomers, notably including Daniela Santanchè and Bruno Mancuso,[93] respectively from FI and Popular Alternative (AP).

[108] In 2020, other minor right-wing parties, such as Gabriella Peluso's Protagonist South and Lorenzo Loiacono's Right Bank, also merged into FdI.

"[112] For the 2019 European Parliament election, FdI recruited several candidates, including five outgoing MEPs (two of Direction Italy, plus three more recent splinters from FI: Fabrizio Bertot, Stefano Maullu, and Elisabetta Gardini), other former FI politicians (Alfredo Antoniozzi and Monica Stefania Baldi), and sociologist Francesco Alberoni.

[114][115] For the 2022 Italian presidential election on 24–29 January, FdI voted Carlo Nordio when all the other main parties proposed a re-election of incumbent president Sergio Mattarella.

[116][117][118] In April 2022, the party organised a large convention in Milan, to discuss its political program and start the campaign for the next general election.

[141] While he remained a candidate, FdI removed its symbol from his candidature;[142] he was elected in the single-district constituency of Agrigento, Sicilia with 37.8% of the vote.

[143] In one of Rome's single-seat constituencies, Ester Mieli, a former spokesperson of the local Jewish community and granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor,[144] was elected with 37.5% of the vote.

[168][169][170] During the annual party convention, named after Michael Ende's character Atreju, which took place in December 2023, international guests included British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Spanish right-wing leader Santiago Abascal and businessman Elon Musk.

[171][172][173] In the 2024 European Parliament election, Meloni led the party in all five constituencies, after presenting the event as a vote of confidence on her leadership and government.

[185][186][187] The party has been characterised as conservative,[39][40] national-conservative,[188][6][189][7][190] conservative-sovereign,[191] right-wing populist,[8][9][10] social-conservative,[41] nationalist,[42][43][192] neo-fascist,[44][40] post-fascist,[45][46][193][194] nativist[47][48] and anti-immigrant.

[8][10] Although FdI rejects the "neo-fascist" label, it has been applied due to the party's history dating back to the Italian Social Movement (MSI),[195] its far-right ties,[196][197][198] its appeal to neo-fascist themes on social media like Facebook,[199] and some party leaders' nostalgia for Italian fascism,[200][201][202][203] including Roman salutes.

[208] In 2019, academic Đorđe Sredanović placed FdI, along with the neo-fascist parties CasaPound (a split from Tricolour Flame, which refused to join the National Alliance) and New Force (FN) from the Terza Posizione tradition, in the post-fascist/neo-fascist categories.

A December 2021 investigation by Fanpage.it on allegations of money laundering and illicit campaign financing also revealed FdI had ties with neo-Nazis in the Milan party section.

[215] FdI, frequently described as Eurosceptic,[39][49][216] aims at a "confederal Europe" of sovereign nations as opposed to a "federal Europe",[53][54][55] and wants to "re-discuss" European Union treaties and amend Italy's constitution to give Italian law priority over European law,[215][217] Once in favour of withdrawing from the eurozone,[218][219] the party abandoned the idea.